My morality has hit me.

I commented the other day on the sad news coming out of Georgetown that it appears we have lost one of our fellow Hoyas. As I was sitting and reflecting today I thought about the loss that I have been touched with in my community and my virtual community and find the quantity astounding. And more importantly how deeply it has affected my view of the world, once the shock has worn off.

On May 21st, the Chapman family (of Steven Curtis Chapman, Christian recording artist fame) lost their youngest daughter Maria Sue in a horrible and tragic driveway accident. I first met this family shortly after they adopted for the first time in 2001 and for the last 9 months have followed Mary Beth's (the Mom's) blog where I got to know her 6 children through antidotes, stories, and photos. When I heard the news I think I stopped breathing for a moment. For months Maria has never been far from my mind.

It was the Chapman family that first really opened my eyes to Chinese orphans. And it was through a long and winding road that I came to know sweet Anna. Anna is a special needs child and during a routine catheter, as part of repairing her special need, a wire knicked a vein. She fought long and hard but it was not enough. Anna went home to heaven last week to her forever home after being with her forever family for 8 all to short weeks. Anna and Maria peacefully lie near each other in Franklin, TN.

It is through another family with twin girls from China, that I came to know Stephanie. Nie, as she is know, is the mother to four kids aged one to six and her love of her children, husband, and for being a mother is apparent in her blog. As one blogger said, "She has a true beauty of spirit that shines though every smile for the camera and every word she so lovingly writes about her family." In the second week of August, Nie and her husband Christian were riding in a plane with his flight instructor when the plane went down in Arizona. Both are currently in the hospital with burns on 80% and 30% of their bodies respectively, both are in chemically induced comas.

Also in the hospital in the past several months are two family friends. Whom we will call Big J and Mighty R. Big J suffered multiple strokes and since he had no health insurance the hospital stopped treating him. But in a catch twenty-two he can't leave the hospital ($2,000 a day cost) without improving, but they won't give him the care he needs so he could get better and leave. My dad fought for him and he was eventually released from the hospital. Big J refused physical therapy and other follow up care and I learned this evening he has lost the use of one of his arms. Big J fills my childhood memories and it hurts me that he is so alone in the world, that his world is spiraling further and further out of his grasp.

Meanwhile I arrived home from China to hear that Mighty R's pancreas surgery had complications and he was still in the hospital fighting an infection. Mighty R was diagnosed with terminal cancer nearly a decade ago and they thought they had beat it. On the plus side Mighty R had insurance, but when his million dollar cap was reached and Mighty R's disposition turned for the worse, both he and the hospital gave up. His girlfriend fought on his behalf and the hospital relented and put in a trakea within days he had improved to the point of the hospital discharging him today! I rejoice in the Lord, Mighty R walked beside me in a time when I felt utterly alone in the world. And he showed me that it was not my fault that I walked this solitary path, but that there was something wrong with a world that had put me on it. I rejoice.

I shared with you Terrance's story briefly. But what I didn't include is Terrance, no matter if he is at home, or school, or in a foreign country, a dorm, Laungier Library, or on the altar of the church singing his heart out, Terrance lives his life with zeal, as if he must brand this life as Terrance's. And he does so with his heart firmly pointed towards Jesus. Terrance gives all of himself every day. If he is no longer here on earth (which I continue to pray is not the case), he is safely in the hands of The Protector and His Creator.

Nie and Christian continue to fight, but an entire blogging community is fighting on their behalf. Currently 300 different bloggers are running silent auctions through the comments section of their sites. All proceeds go to the family's recovery fund. I am amazed time and time again at what the virtual community continues to do for them.

Maria Sue lived her life with zeal. On the day after Maria's death and over the weeks to come, as Jim Houser Steven's Manager said, the world showed up. So much so that three months later over 600,000 dollars has been donated to Maria's Miracle Fund at the Chapman family adoption charity, Shaohannah's Hope. Enough money to begin building Maria's Big House of Hope, a living and treatment facility in Laoyang for abandoned special-needs Chinese children. This family has now been featured in People magazine 3 times and have appeared on Good Morning America and Larry King Live, where they have told the story of their faith. Under any other circumstances these circulation numbers.... The only reason they can get through a day is because they know that God healed Maria but in a way their family did not like; she is whole and at home in the arms of Jesus. And yet when Mary Beth said on Good Morning America, she doesn't care if the entire world becomes better for Maria going to heaven, she is a mom and in her flesh she just wants Maria back, she just wants her little girl back - I broke.

Steven Curtis Chapman said that "we are convinced now that Maria was trying to cram a lifetime into five years of life.... She was so full of passion." I have over 17 years on Maria Sue, and sometimes I think I stand back from life. The seared scars from my past still stand in the way. But if Maria, or Terrance, or Anna, Nie, or Mighty R were here they would tell us to live our lives. So I will savor the blue skies, and the music and I will dance tonight, and laugh tonight. I will sit down tomorrow with a cup of hot cocoa and as the rain from Hurricane Hannah pounds my window I will gladly turn to my books and study and stop taking this collegiate experience for granted.

"In this world thall shall have tribulation." Life is not easy, God tells us in these words that by the grace of God. "Gods strength be perfect in one's weakness," the bible says. I have not reconciled myself with my own problems with my faith, but I have found myself turning to the comfort of Jesus even though I don't understand. But I choose that this is where I put my faith, to be able to have faith in the world, you have to have faith in Jesus. Without the later, I don't know how you can have the former.

I don't know why Anna and Maria's lives ended at the tender ages of 2 and 5. I don't know why Big J and Mighty R are allowed to leave the hospital, but Nie and Christian are still there fighting. I don't know why Big J's triump was followed by such sad news, or why Mighty R is now thriving. I don't know why we know where Anna and Maria lay but not Terrance. I don't know why this world is filled with pain, why it touches some lives deeper than others. And that is really hard. Regardless of our level of understanding, we must acknowledge the wounds, hurt, confusion, that there are questions that cannot be answered, that until the day of reckoning we will never know. But ironically on that day the answers won't matter even though we have waited our lives for them.

Today, I realize that with tragedy and pain do come rewards for overcoming the obstacles of life. That somehow in celebrating and mourning together the defeats are softened and the victories sweeter because of what we have overcome. That even though the pain will never fully heal (and would you even want it to?) we become stronger, more resilient, and confident, we stop taking things for granted, we lean on God, we rejoice at even the smallest victories. Some how after tremendous pain we start to live our lives again how we should have before.

Maybe there is no such thing as tragedy, maybe there is only hope and opportunity for growth and moving forward. We can't stop time from turning we can only look at the moment we are in now. At an all too painful time in my life I once said, "No matter how hard I wish I can't turn back time." Maybe for the first time in the 5 years since I said those words do I think that maybe it is okay that we can't, maybe I don't need to be stuck on what happened long ago, maybe I don't need to erase it. So we must come to terms with what happened yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, because being in this moment, really, is a miracle in and of itself.

P.S. I will add links later but it is 230 and I need to head to bed.